WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The No. 19-ranked West Liberty University women's basketball team opened up a double-digit halftime lead and pulled away to a 97-78 victory against Shepherd Thursdaynight at the ASRC.

Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (6-1, 3-0) scored the last seven points of the first quarter to open up a 22-15 lead and the Rams (2-5, 1-2) never recovered.

A strong finish to the second quarter produced a 52-38 West Liberty lead at halftime and the Black and Gold maintained the double-digit advantage the rest of the way, leading by as many as 24 points in the waning minutes.

Despite the lop-sided final margin, Ullom noted that his team is far from a finished product.

 "In all honesty, we played like a team in early December that's not quite clicking on all cylinders," he said. "We didn't have a very good defensive game at all but we still did enough good things to beat a quality basketball team."

The Hilltoppers got big numbers from their "Big 3" senior trio of Liz Flowers, Kailee Howe and Kiki Simpson.

Flowers poured in a game-high 30 points, handed out 5 assists and had 3 steals while Howe added 16 points, 16 assists and matched Flowers' 3 steals. The WLU backcourt duo shot a combined 13-of-13 from the charity stripe.

While Flowers and Howe were policing the perimeter, Simpson was simply dominating in the paint.

The 5-11 post also had a double-double with 13 points and a staggering 17 rebounds while batting aside 5 Shepherd shots and altering at least that many more.

Emily Bucon, Baylen Dyrlund and Johnie Olkosky added to West Liberty's balanced attack with 9 points each.

Morgan Arden paced Shepherd with 24 points while Kristen Nunn added 18 and Liz Myers posted a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

The Hilltoppers will be back in action again Saturday afternoon with a key MEC contest against perennial power Fairmont State. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. at the ASRC and Ullom was already looking forward to the challenge.

"It's a long season and we have a huge conference rival coming in here Saturday afternoon," Ullom said. "We just need to get ourselves back on the practice court and keep getting better as a team."

GAME NOTES

X Ullom was presented with a commemorative plaque and presidential citation prior to the game in recognition of his 500th career victory

X Simpson passed WLU Hall of Famer Ashlea Bland for the No. 2 spot on the school's career rebounding list with 870 rebounds. Former Hilltopper All-American Tori Hansen is No. 1 with 918

X Flowers is now No. 5 on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,569 career points. Lena Kalvans is No. 4 with 1,579 points

X Howe's 16 assists were one shy of the MEC record season-high 17 she recorded against Slippery Rock last week. She leads the nation with an average of 11.6 assists per game